Morning music
Tweets seen
Incidentally, I am told by a reader of this blog that The Times has printed some kind of report about my recent trial. I refuse to pay even a small amount in order read the sort of rubbish put out by the contemporary “British” newspapers, so I do not know exactly what is the content of that report (I can guess, pretty much, anyway), but what strikes me is that it has apparently only appeared today, five days after the trial itself. Hardly “breaking news”.
I wonder what will happen with the newspapers in the UK. Several years ago, Rupert Murdoch gave the paper versions of newspapers only until about 2025 to survive, and certainly one rarely sees anyone buying a newspaper these days. I occasionally see an elderly person (always elderly, meaning 70+ if not 80+) buying a newspaper in Waitrose; not so often though.
The quality of journalistic language, let alone analysis, has fallen through the floor despite (?) the now almost exclusively graduate entry. Poor English, and little background knowledge, are patent.
I read somewhere that newspapers are still functioning because the online versions both take subscriptions, and make money out of advertisements; also, the mainly young “journalist” scribblers are paid very modestly. The only highly-paid scribblers now are the “celebrity” columnists, or so I read.
I myself last bought a newspaper about 25 years ago.
Hunt and Sunak had little choice, politically. Opinion polling puts the Conservative Party on about 20% for the 2024 General Election. Most of that consists of State Pensioners. Without the pensioner vote, the Conservative Party is toast. It may be that it is anyway, but being seen to pander a bit to the most obvious interest of those over 65 is a desperate way to shore up, at least to some extent, that core vote.
Incidentally, using Electoral Calculus, the difference between (A) a 20% vote and (B) a 15% vote is (A) 57 Conservative MPs (Lab 508) and (B) 19 Conservative MPs (Lab 541).
Were the Con Party able to rise to a support-level of 25%, the result might be 125 Con MPs (Lab 452); on 30%, 219 Con MPs (Lab 360).
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html.
For Sunak and Hunt, the (for now) retention of the Triple Lock is a no-brainer, of course. However, it will not save them. The best they can hope for, I think, is a hard defeat next year. It is an open question whether that defeat will prove almost, or actually, existential.
“Isaac Levido“? Well, wouldn’t you know? Every. Single. Time…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Levido.
London. Zoo.
“Three train robbers who battered a victim for their £36 chain in a spate of 14 violent thefts have been jailed...”
[My London]
More “diversity” in our wonderful new multikulti society…
I wonder what our society will look like in 20 years? Or 50? Thankfully, I shall probably not be around to see 2043, and certainly not 2073.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 